Living Without a Mirror
How much time do you spend looking at a mirror when you’re getting ready for your workday?
If you try to dress, fix your hair, and put on makeup in the morning without a mirror, you won’t be able to check to ensure that your clothes look good on you, that your hair is in place, and that your makeup is applied in a complementary way.
Do you look in a mirror at any other time during the day, maybe to check your clothes, hair, or face after lunch?
In the same way that a physical mirror helps you to adjust your physical appearance when you look at it, God’s Word helps you to make sure that you are aligned with the way you should be in your spirit and soul, and in the actions of your body. If you’re not looking into the mirror of God’s Word to see who God created you to be through Jesus, and comparing that to how you’re looking and acting right now, you won’t recognize the areas that need to change.
James wrote, “For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” James 1:23-25 (NLT)
Your faith is supposed to have corresponding actions, but if you don’t read your Bible, you won’t know how you’re supposed to act. You cannot be a doer of God’s Word if you don’t know what you’re supposed to do.
When you look in the mirror of God’s Word and apply actions to what you see, you can please God and grow in all areas of your life. By continuing to look at God’s Word—hearing it taught, reading it for yourself, and obeying what you learn from that study—your faith will have corresponding actions. You’ll be living a life of faith.
And there’s even more. When you listen to and act on God’s Word, it guards you against allowing your body’s desires to overrule what you know to be truth for living. His Word sustains, guides, and encourages you. It is daily, dynamic, spiritual food that sustains every part of you.
